t possibil."

"And what did you bite me for?" pursued Swing, disregarding the slur.
"Hell's bells, if you'd bit Luke I wouldn't have a word to say, but
why pick on me?"

"Well, you bumped my head so hard I saw sparks, so we're even. Say,
stop squallin' about yore hand! I didn't bite you half as hard as I
might have. Not half. You can still use the hand all right, can't you?
Yeah. Well, then, you ain't got anything to cry about, not a thing."

"Talk sense, will you? You got us into a fine mess, you have. A fi-ine
mess."

"Guess I fooled him, all right," Racey said with irritating
complacency.

"What was you trying to do, anyway?" Swing snarled, glaring at his
friend. "What was the notion of tearin' off all them confidences about
bein' busted and yore dear friends at the Bar S and how you and me
was gonna play detective? And to think Providence lets a
what-you-may-call-it like you go on living! It ain't reasonable."

"That business of telling Luke we was busted," grinned Racey, "and
asking him for a loan was just so I could work up roundabout and
natural like to how the Bar S bunch was my personal friends and how
we were gonna ride for Jack Harpe and watch him on their account. I
wanted him to know those things, and I couldn't slam out and tell him
dry so, could I? It wouldn't sound natural. It would make him think
the wrong way, you bet. Luke Tweezy ain't a plumb fool, for all he
made the mistake of denying he knowed Jack Harpe. That was a bad one."

"Yeah, but--"

"Lookit, Swing, we know that when Lanpher spoke of a front yard there
in the hotel corral he meant the Bar S range. Aw right. While we're
shore Jack Harpe wants to hire us to do his dirty work--which means
being rubbed out by our own friends likely--would he let us ride for
him if he thought the Bar S was paying us to watch him?"

"Not if he knowed what he was doing," admitted Swing.

"That's why I got so greasy and confidential with Mister Luke Tweezy.
So Jack Harpe will know."

"And Luke will tell him?"

"Will Luke tell him? Luke will run to him a-pantin'. I'll gamble Jack
Harpe knows the awful worst already. So we'll be safe enough to go to
Jack to-morrow morning bright and early and tell him we've decided to
give him the benefit of our services."

"But I thought we figured not to ride for him," said the now
thoroughly bewildered Swing.

"Of course we ain't. In words of one syllable, Swing, I want to find
out if it is the Bar S Jack Harpe